Where did the time go?
Four years ago I got in a jammed packed car with my mom and left home for college. Left the people and places that I had known my entire life to start out somewhere completely new. Like everyone else, I was scared, anxious, excited, and hopeful for what was to come. I remember thinking what if people don't like me. Wanting to be a completely different person than I was in high school, someone who was sure of themselves, who didn't let people walk into her life just to walk back out again. I remember the first night at school meeting so many new people who, like me, longed for companionship. There is something so incredible about that first semester of college. So many changes within everyone. In the blink of an eye, I changed too.
We learn so much about ourselves, and about how to live and be around other people who have completely different life experiences than our own. The memories and friends we make are irreplaceable.
You may talk about greek life or what you want to involve yourself with your new best friends, and what the next semester will bring. You leave for winter break texting each other everyday and excited to see what the next chapter of college will be.
If you end up going through recruitment you find yourself in a whirlwind of so many new people, new opportunities, and a potential home. Go for it, no matter what your first semester friends choose to do. Time changes everything. In a blink of an eye, one of the craziest years of your life has come to an end.
At this point you are on your way back to a summer of high school friends that you may or may not be completely unattached to, counting down the days until you can be back at school.
Sophomore year and junior year will go by in the blink of an eye. You begin to take the classes you are actually interested in, and get involved in whatever organizations that you chose to be apart of. You learn that time changes everything, and sometimes the friends you made first semester, drift into different things and though you may still say hi to each other in passing that you've both drifted apart. You have made friends with upperclassmen, and even people who are younger than you, and might have even found your first college relationship. You will have to watch friends graduate, and miss them when they are gone.
All of a sudden you find yourself coming back to college for the last time. You look around and all of a sudden it seems that you know less people out at the parties, or around campus. You are constantly busy between trying to balance school, your social life, and attempting to understand the crazy idea that we have to "adult" soon. You latch on to as many people as possible, because in a few (all to short) months, you'll be leaving the amazing place that you call home.
The late nights staying up to do homework or binge watch Netflix with your best friends, or just being in a ten-mile radius of the people you love most. You will find yourself, two weeks from graduation, looking back and realizing that the person who got in the car 4 years ago to come to this crazy place, is not the same person who will be packing up to leave it in the middle of May.
College teaches you more than what you learn in class. It is a time to learn things that can only come from experience. The lessons that you learn when you have arguments with your roommates. The lessons that come from truly realizing that timing is everything, and that if someone asks you to adventure, you say yes. College is a time to make mistakes, to take risks, and to challenge yourself more than you ever thought you could. It teaches you to be patient with other people, that everyone thinks and understands differently. Take advantage of the time you have left, and the people that are along for the ride with you. Do things you wouldn't normally do, say yes to adventures with your friends. To going on that drive with a friend just to sing along to music on full blast, or staying up too late watching Netflix with everyone. To trips to d-hall, or even the library. Because those are the things that I'm going to miss most, and I can promise you, you won't want to look back and wish that you had.
Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it. – Ferris Bueller, from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
